Breath from God

 “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” (Gen. 2:7 ESV)

A negative proclamation to take a stand against

Recently I had a cat-scan and was looking over the images with the physician in his office. Then he said, “You’re about to die! In fact, I don’t know how you’ve continued to stay alive this long!” I thought he was joking! Because, who would actually say such a thing to a patient without telling them to first sit down? But, he was serious! And he proceeded to show me the “problem area” from multiple cat-scan angles, from the top and from all sides! Apparently, according to the scan, my breathing passage is so restricted that I shouldn’t be able to breathe through it at all.  Then, he continued to explain all the negative effects of this condition, as though the prognosis of “death” wasn’t bad enough. After the appointment, I told my wife what the doctor had said. As we began to process the information, I was in a bit of shock. But I quickly recovered and on the drive home we decided to get in agreement with Scripture (Matt. 18:19) rather than to be in agreement with the doctor’s “proclamation of death” over me. The scripture, in fact, has a lot of great promises to claim on the subject of breath. Here are a few.

God’s breath gives me life

“The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” (Job 33:4 ESV)

Say to the breath, “Thus says the Lord God!”

“Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God…” (Ez. 37:9a ESV)

“Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life.” (Ez. 37:5 NASB)

Choose life!

"Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!” (Deut. 30:19 NLT)

Therefore...

“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 159:6 ESV)

“I will not die; instead, I will live to tell what the LORD has done.” (Psalm 118:17 NIV)